InFinance - June 2007
Building a memorable brand in the Australian financial services industry is no easy feat.
A serious subject matter, combined with intense regulation, means any brand building activity and promotion has to stay within certain boundaries.
The role of the internet however, is beginning to change those boundaries. Whether in wealth management, superannuation, broking or insurance, the way consumers are engaging with brands in the finance sector is changing the way brands compete.
Whilst an online presence alone will not build a robust brand for most offerings, the latest results indicate that most research on financial services products and services is undertaken via the web.
In order to influence purchasing decisions, a company’s web presence needs to engage, inform, educate and most importantly, entertain.
Although entertainment may not be high on the agenda of many financial services businesses, some have caught on, with spectacular success. By leveraging comedian Billy Connolly with the ING brand, the company has experienced a high level of brand penetration and recognition.
However, you don’t have to hire a comedian to create an entertaining brand.
In the digital world, there are many techniques that can be use to create online engagement. One of the most effective and as yet unexplored medium in the Australian financial services industry is online video, or ‘slivercasting’. Slivercasting is TV quality entertainment, broadcast via the internet, on a particular niche or subject.
The appeal of a slivercasts is that the medium is tailored to the end user, who is typically time poor and inundated with information, therefore anything that makes technical information more digestible, is attractive to this audience.
For the reason that most viewers are accustom to the way television delivers information, slivercasts are a logical extension of this format.
Online video content has been slower to take off in the Australian marketplace, mainly due to the limited broadband rollout - making access difficult. However as broadband penetration continues to grow, the popularity of slivercasting and online video content will continue to rise.
There is a science around slivercasting and getting it right for the intended audience. evolution media has been testing audience acceptance of time of consumption, frequency, information depth and the differences between the generational viewers.
And the findings have been more than a little interesting. Gen Y is the hardest to capture of any generation as far as brand loyalty. They have grown up with a multitude of choice around brands, and decide in seconds whether something is worthy of their time and attention.
To create online TV quality viewing for Gen Y is a very different proposition than for a baby boomer. The information interpretation, scripting techniques, talent and delivery methods are unique to each particular age segment and this needs to be taken into account when creating video content.
However the medium itself holds great merit for all generations. And the growth of the phenomenon worldwide is astounding, with Forrester Research estimating that online video audiences are tripling every three months.
The key to success in slivercasting, and in a broader sense, a company’s internet presence, is personalising the information in an entertaining, engaging, easily digestible and navigational format.
Businesses that don’t recongise this today and start to plough significant focus and investment on their online presence will miss tomorrow’s potential customer.
Changes to the internet and the way people are consuming information has heralded a new online world, known as Web 2.0. In which the levels of personalisation, engagement and focus on the individual are unheralded.
The most obvious example is You Tube - a business that after 18 months sold to Google for $1.86 billion. What is the main attraction of You Tube? Online video, and personalisation of content for the purpose of entertainment.
Financial services brands can learn a lot about how to engage and interact with the online consumer.
Key considerations for marketing and building brand in the Web 2.0 world are:
1. Flexibility
It is no longer enough to simply publish a brochure online. You must offer choice of both depth and format of content offered - in a highly interactive setting. Involvement level is a decision that falls back to the individual - but the option must be built into a businesses offering.
To deliver to consumer expectations in the next generation Web world, you need to consider what your audience wants to consume:
- Video
- Audio
- Text
- Imagery
As well as how they engage with it:
- browser platforms
- mobile devices
- their bandwidth
And when they want to engage with it:
- now
- later
- some now, some later
2. Collaboration
The stellar growth of sites like MySpace and You Tube are indicative of a broad desire to create and own. The extension of the collaborative nature of these sites and others is to involve the audience in the brand and product development process. The logical extension of audience involvement is a sense of ownership - which has been proven to foster brand loyalty and drive lifetime value.
3. Community branding
The old world adage that word of mouth marketing is the most powerful tool is more relevant than ever. In this next generation internet environment, the process of diffusion of information amongst communities has simply been replicated online. There are many brands experimenting with branding through online communities, such as Second Life.
Like any other community branding exercise, targeting the right community is crucial, and two way communications is fundamental - so set up the facilities that allow customers to be heard - and listened to. This practice is not new either - financial services firms have always done this through their sales force and sponsorships.
HSBC, for example, have their own moderated blog page for customers, dedicated to their opinions on hot topics ranging from music to restaurants. While this information may not be directly related to financial services, it recognises the holistic nature of consumers, who want to be seen as individuals with opinions, rather than a transactional based relationship (http://www.yourpointofview.com).
The bottom line is that the end users expectations of the online experience have grown exponentially. They want to choose rather than be told. And want to be recognised and valued as individuals in the online world, just as in the real world.
Only when genuine recognition and acknowledgement of the individual is achieved will a true, ongoing relationship be forged. In the same way as the quality of one to one human relationships is dictated by the flexibility and responsiveness of one party to another, so too is the quality of relationships in the digital world.
Those financial services brands that set out to engage, entertain, educate and participate with the existing and potential customer base will be the leading brands of tomorrow.